PLC training recommendations

[maronson]

I am advising a group in NJ building a high school/college/university-linked program in mechatronics. The group would like advice on two things:

1) in terms of PLC systems to teach and marketshare industry, how important is it to teach Festo OR Allen Bradley OR? and why should it matter?
2) in terms of certifications for trainees, how relevant is Siemens or ISA?

Many thanks for your thoughts and advice.

 

[dlweber]

Allen Bradley is widely used here in the states and I would say it is a safe bet the majority of the students (that get a job or pursue a job in the field) will benefit at least some from AB experience.

That being said in school I had AB GE and direct logic experiences, I think I got more having different ones, not for brand specific reasons. I think it gives them more of a chance to tell a prospective employer I seen this this and this I can adapt to ANY brand you have, rather than we did all AB work I can try to figure out the others (well that theory got me a job at least)

Quick edit: If you only have seen one brand you can't really say you can adapt to different brands, if you have already done it migrating to even more brands is easier because you have already seen multiple ways to skin the same cat.

 

[dlweber]

Worst thing is to come out of school having tunnel vision, unless you are a training facility for a certain brand of course.

The more (quality) exposure to different formats a student can have the more opportunities the student will have.

I don't know much about the pneumatic side...but I would go with the same general concept.

 

[shooter]

Try to find a supplier or company that can sponsor the school.
Here we have a close relation with companies, They know exactly what is needed now, and often they will be very happy to support the school as the students are ready to get in the practice, and do not need much training while they are payed.

I would go for 61131 and not specific a model. But lessons according to standards, and the practice can be on any machine.
( as long as you stay within the standard and do no fancy things like (PEEK, POKE)
I would also advice you to have a look at Arduino, it is cheap and gives very fast results. Yes i know it is 10 years old, and now there are better solutions, however they are not so known as parallax its open source and free)
btw Codesys , is a free program to learn 61131. and the PLC is rather cheap and modular (Festo is codesys based)

 

[bodri]

an interesting idea. but for the moment I haven't got any feedback. I'm sory.

​

 

[James Mcquade]

Welcome to the forum.

You will find a wealth of knowledge here.

I would start calling industries in your area and explain what you are doing and ask the maintenance manager what brand of plc's they are using and what other training they would like to see.

A good friend of mine opened many doors that way and got a lot of answers. He consolidated the information into several pages and sent that information to the industries he called.

He then went to the local plc distributors and got a lot of help / donations.
His graduates are well received in the local area by industry.
This program was at a local college in West Tennessee.

regards,
james

 

[dlweber]

Try to find a supplier or company that can sponsor the school.
Here we have a close relation with companies, They know exactly what is needed now, and often they will be very happy to support the school

I am advising a group in NJ building a high school/college/university-linked program in mechatronics.

It looks like he is that company support that you mentioned. But I agree my college had a committee of local industry reps for each "school" of the college. The biggest thing that came out of the meetings was improving communication skills and be flexible (like what I was saying above)